Rounding the Wagons

So many bad habits have evolved over the summer and now is the time to nip them in the bud. Everyone is deaf and slow and sluggish and rude to each other. Nice. How to get this under control has been floating through my brain as I drive older people to work in the morning, and review reality discipline in their lives and me quieting my party animal self. Yikes. How to get everyone to be quiet and listen and then also to keep up with their chores so we don't die of..........something from clutter. I'm not going to do the 'ease them into school' routine as it is already the middle of September. Boy Scouts, playing and TV are back to being carrots. There is still some coughing in the house but I seem to recall hacking through my classes back in the day. Bedtime is being backed up and I may not seem like the most understanding mommy anymore for a while. Even now the morning is getting away from us. It is late afternoon now and I didn't get nearly as much as I would have liked done but hey, it is a start. I made a job chart which distributes the pain through the day and week to different folks so that no one is heavily burdened. They are to do their chores and school work cheerfully to earn their pizza and movie night on Friday. We are going to earn beans in a cup or something like that to set goals for a week of things like obedience and following through on their assignments. They will have to have a minimum of beans to get the pizza. We shall see if this works. There are still many more responsibilities which are not on the chart and I will figure out how to tackle those as time goes by. It is the end of day one and I am exhausted from the sleep deprivation and persevering through the day. We shall see what tomorrow brings.